Darch looked between them and took another long swig of wine. She wiped her mouth and nodded. ‘Alright. The keys to the storage unit and the house are at my office. We can meet there tomorrow and—’
‘Tonight,’ Maggie said. She didn’t want to see Stephanie Darch again. ‘We’ll go tonight.’
For a long moment, Darch looked at her. Finally, she nodded. ‘Tonight it is.’
‘Did you drive?’ Cooper asked.
‘Walked,’ Darch said. ‘But you two drive. I need to make a phone call.’
‘We’ll walk with you,’ Maggie said.
Another moment of consideration, then another nod.
Outside the air was cool and the night sky thick with dark clouds. A light rain was falling. Cars rolled by, and the occasional beeping of a horn was punctuated by a yell from somewhere back on Smith Street. Cooper stayed close to Darch, talking to her about paperwork and details. Maggie lingered behind them, eyes on Darch. Involuntarily, her right hand opened and closed.
Darch hadn’t gone for her phone.
Something had been building the whole time they’d been in the bar, something more than the pulsing hatred that grew with every second in Darch’s company. It was a sense that she’d been carrying since Cairns, a hard-to-define sense of something being missing in all this. It was the same sense that had flared up with Cooper’s refusal to name his suspect, and the moment in Holbrook with the bikies. Paranoia, maybe, but Maggie doubted it. Whatever the case, she had to play this next part very carefully.
Especially considering that if Darch was true to her word, she’d be getting the keys tonight. And then what? Maggie had parked her car at a slight distance to avoid the risk of Cooper knowing where to follow her to, but to get back to it she’d still have to evade him. And even then the key was only the first step. She would then need to reach the storage unit and search it without him finding her there.
Darch led them right around a corner, onto a narrow, shadowy street. There was no-one else in sight and the lights in the row of old shops were all out. Even the distant horns were now only faint snatches. Darch stopped at a glass door through which Maggie could see only crumpled blinds. There were faded gold letters on the window. Darch’s first name was missing the T. She didn’t look at Cooper. Focused on the layout of the office.
The waiting room smelled musty. Drab beige chairs lined the off-white walls. Dog-eared magazines sat on chipped coffee tables. Maggie wondered if anyone ever sat behind that empty reception desk.
‘Wait here a moment,’ Darch said.
She pushed through a door behind the desk and shut it.
‘Relatively painless,’ Cooper said.
There was something about his voice. Something almost surprised. Maggie’s eyes moved to the closed door to Darch’s office. Then back to Cooper, who was looking at the window.
Maggie followed Darch. Cooper said something but Maggie ignored him. She shoved the door open.
Darch was hunched over her desk, phone halfway to her ear. She gaped at Maggie, then went to speak but was cut off by Maggie’s fist. Darch’s head hit the table. Maggie grabbed the phone, throwing it across the room. Gasping, Darch tried to push herself up on the desk. Maggie’s eyes landed on a letter opener. She picked it up and, fist clenched around the hilt, pushed the tip hard into Darch’s middle finger, splayed on the desk.
‘Maggie.’ Cooper was in the doorway, hands raised, eyes wide.
‘Who were you trying to call?’ Maggie said.
There were tears in Darch’s eyes. ‘N-no-one, just a—’
Maggie pushed the letter opener harder. Darch squealed. Cooper didn’t move.
‘The police,’ the lawyer cried.
Pounding in Maggie’s ears. ‘Cooper is the police.’
Darch shook her head. ‘He’s not on your case.’
Her case.
‘Maggie, please, listen to me,’ Cooper said.
The bikies. The evasions.
Keeping the letter opener pressed into Darch’s finger, Maggie turned to Harrison Cooper. ‘Who the fuck are you working for?’
Cooper didn’t reply. His jaw was tight as he tried to think, tried to work out the explanation that was eluding him.
‘The keys,’ Maggie said to Darch. ‘Now.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
Through her tears the lawyer looked up at Maggie and there at last, burning through the alcohol and the smug condescension was pure acid spite. ‘Because you killed him.’
The heel of Maggie’s left palm slammed hard into her clenched right fist. A crack of severed bone, a burst of blood and Darch was screaming, falling, clutching her hand. Maggie sensed movement and pointed the letter opener directly at Cooper.
‘The keys, now, or it will be more than a finger,’ Maggie said, without looking away from Cooper.
Spluttering and sobbing, Darch fumbled for the drawer to her desk.
‘Maggie, this isn’t what you think,’ Cooper said.
‘Fuck you.’
A clatter on the table as two keys on a ring were dropped. Darch hit the floor again, quivering. Maggie snatched up the keys and as she did, in that moment of distraction, heard the click of a cocked gun.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cooper’s aim wasn’t wavering. ‘Give me the keys.’
Maggie didn’t reply.
‘Please,’ Cooper said. ‘Give me the keys and I can let you leave. No-one will know you were here, but you have to give me the keys before—’
From outside, the low rumble of an engine. Then another and another. Behind Cooper, bright light fractured by the blinds filled the waiting room.
Cooper’s expression was pained. ‘Please.’
Maggie didn’t move.
They both turned as the front door opened with a creak. Maggie dropped her arm, turning the letter opener up inside her wrist, concealed. She moved back as Cooper stepped aside.
A man stood in the doorway to Darch’s office. He was tall; his slicked-back hair almost brushed the doorframe. His amused blue eyes stood out in a clean-shaven, sunbeaten face as he looked them all over. His leather cut, with a patch inscribed Vice President, strained slightly against his muscled torso.
‘Evening.’ His voice was a deep, low drawl. ‘Threw a party and didn’t invite us, Harrison?’
‘It’s under control, Byrne,’ Cooper said.
The bikie – Byrne – glanced from Cooper’s gun to Maggie’s letter opener to where Darch was crumpled shaking in the corner. ‘Clearly,’ he said. ‘Lucky for you, Rook wanted us to keep an eye on things. Can we step out into the waiting room? This office is a bit fucking claustrophobic.’ He moved backwards. Cooper shot Maggie a look that urged her to comply before he followed Byrne. Maggie hesitated, then did the same.
Two more bikies waited out there, a skinny young one with straw-coloured hair and wide eyes, and an older, bearded man with a shotgun.
‘Who the fuck is she?’ the young man said.
‘Hoping to get answers to that myself, Nipper.’ Byrne looked steadily at Maggie.
Maggie said nothing.
Byrne nodded to Cooper. ‘Well?’
‘She’s Eric’s daughter.’
Byrne looked back to Maggie, eyebrows raised. ‘No shit.’
‘How did you know my father?’ Maggie asked.
‘Figured you’d keep a few key details from her?’ Byrne said to Cooper. Then to Maggie: ‘Your dad was a mate of ours. Just like Harrison. Just like—’
‘That’s enough.’ Cooper’s voice was hard.
Byrne’s lip curled up in a smirk. He crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs, resting his right ankle on his left knee as he leaned back. ‘Seems there’s a lot you’ve been keeping to yourself, Harrison. Were you gonna tell us about the girl? Or were you just gonna let her slip off into the night the moment you had the keys?’
‘She’s got nothing to do with this,’ Cooper said.
‘Was that the tune you played her?’
Cooper
looked away.
Byrne’s cold gaze moved to Maggie. ‘Problem is, this does have something to do with her. More than something, now. Rook’s gonna need to hear what she might know.’
‘I haven’t told her anything,’ Cooper said.
Byrne’s eyes didn’t leave Maggie. ‘We’ll be the judge of that.’
Maggie tried to gauge her distance to the door without looking. She’d have to get past the two other bikies to get out. And even then, she’d be on foot and they’d have bikes. She didn’t imagine they’d conveniently left the keys in the ignitions for her.
‘This is what’s gonna happen,’ Byrne said to Maggie. ‘You’ll hand over those keys. Then you’re gonna come with us back to the clubhouse. If you say no, we’ll kill you.’ There was no change in tone on the last part.
‘Oh yeah, no worries,’ Maggie said. ‘And after you’ve taken me to your clubhouse and presumably tortured me, you’ll let me go of course.’
‘Depends on how forthcoming you are.’ Byrne stood. ‘Now. Keys.’
Maggie kept her eyes from darting around the room. That thrum of energy was building again. Her senses felt heightened; the light a little too bright, outlines a little too sharp.
The bearded older bikie moved for Maggie. She held out the keys. He went to take them.
Distantly, she heard a siren.
The bikie glanced at the door just as just as Maggie grabbed his hand and brought the letter opener up hard through his wrist.
The bikie screamed. Maggie pulled him around just as Nipper fired off several shots, shots that silenced the bearded man immediately as he slumped against Maggie. She yanked out the letter opener and dived for the door, past a shocked Nipper and a frozen Cooper. The sirens were louder. Then more shots and glass shattered as she stumbled into the night.
The rain had picked up. At one end of the road, the flashing lights of a police car screeched into view. Sirens were coming from the other end as well. Behind her she could hear Byrne’s bellowing. She ran across the street, weaving as another volley of bullets turned the night into an explosive cacophony. She clocked the mouth of a narrow alley between shops and ran through it just as the buildings behind her were bathed in red and blue and more yells filled the air.
Maggie ran down the slippery alley. Ahead was the bulk of a dumpster and then—
A glare of light and a growl of engine as a bike pulled into the alley.
Maggie flung herself behind the dumpster. She tried to slow her breathing. Her heart pounded. More roars from the street behind her, almost drowned out by the shrieking sirens. The wall of the alley across from her turned bright with the headlight. The bike slowed to a crawl as it approached. Maggie closed her eyes. Focused. She waited for the sound of the engine to drown out everything else, then opened her eyes as the bike pulled into view and lunged.
She slammed into the rider, who shouted as he was carried sideways and the weight of the bike crushed his leg. Everything came in fragments: the helmet, the Scorpion insignia on his jacket, the letter opener in Maggie’s hand, the blood as she drove it into his neck again and again.
The bikie was struggling feebly but there wasn’t time to finish the job. She pushed herself up and away from the still-vibrating bike. The yelling and sirens from behind hadn’t slowed. She moved fast and quiet the way the bikie had come, slipping the bloodied letter opener into her pocket as she did.
Maggie exited the alley into another street; also still, the various takeaway stores and cafés closed for the night. A couple of lights above shops had turned on, awakened by the noise. She hurried up the street, alert for any sign of movement, any shifting shadow. She continued until she reached the turn-off for another main street then kept going, now into a residential area, all jammed together townhouses and cramped front gardens. She couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. She kept moving. She held her hand out, hoping the rain would be enough to do something about the blood.
Her heart hadn’t slowed. She could feel the shaking she was barely holding at bay. But she couldn’t let it overwhelm her, send her curling into a ball ready for the police or the bikies or anyone to come and take her away. For now, she had to move, to get away from these side streets to somewhere more public, somewhere where even the boldest bikie wouldn’t attack and even the savviest cop wouldn’t think to look.
Darch must have called the police. Ignored and injured in the office, she’d taken her chance. Maggie might have been impressed, even grateful, but that didn’t make her regret severing Darch’s finger.
As she turned right again onto a wider, better lit street, Maggie pulled off her jacket despite the chilly air and slung it over her arm, as if she’d got too warm and was carrying it. She didn’t seem to have much more blood on her, but for now she would just have to hope she looked innocuous enough. With her other, clean hand she ran her fingers through her wet hair, pulling as much as she could over her face without obscuring her vision.
There were more people around here, clumps of laughing drinkers and the occasional old man veering with a bottle of something cheap. None of them seemed to have the slightest idea of what had happened just several blocks away. Good. That meant none of them would think to associate her with it. She kept walking until she hit Smith Street. She was near the top of it now, and it was alive with lights and tables that scattered the pavement as people downed beer, talked shit and staggered to the next bar. Nobody paid her the slightest bit of attention as she moved fast through them all.
Down the street, distinctly louder than the cars, the roar of a bike. Several.
Maggie didn’t turn or speed up. Somewhere in the night there were sirens, but that didn’t mean they were coming for her. Still, she needed to be away from here. The bikes were getting louder.
From behind her came the tell-tale ding of a tram. There was a stop up ahead and she moved for it. The tram was new, she saw, all vivid green paint and a well-lit interior. It slowed and she stepped on. It was crowded with people, mostly standing, talking loudly over each other. She wished that she had a phone she could look at. Instead, she tried to smile vaguely, a slightly drunk girl headed home from a night out. She found a seat up the back. She didn’t look out the window. It was harder to make out the sounds of bikes in here, but they had to be close and she had to look inconspicuous.
What had she learned? Not much, apart from the fact that Cooper was almost certainly working for the bikies. He had said it wasn’t what she thought, but what the hell did that mean? His motives seemed inconsequential in the face of the fact that, again, he had let her down. With a swell of boiling rage, she realised that he had known his lies would bring her into danger. Now here she was, stuck in the city she’d spent so long running from, hunted by bikies and cops and Townsend all at once with no clue of where to turn or how to get out of this. The only advantage she had, and it wasn’t much of one, was she had the keys that everyone wanted so much.
Sitting across from her was a young boy, wide-eyed in the face of everything around him. His mother’s protective arm was over his shoulders even as she looked at her phone. The boy was looking at Maggie.
Then, from outside the window, the distinctive roar of a bike.
Maggie sank a little lower in her seat, didn’t look, despite her racing heart, despite the feeling that every inch of her was vibrating with the energy of a building explosion. The bike was louder, then gone, past the tram.
The boy was still looking at Maggie. Specifically, at the jacket covering her hand. At the bloom of blood on it. Maggie rearranged the jacket to hide it. She raised her clear hand, put a finger to her lips and winked at the boy.
The tram turned, moving off Smith Street and towards the city. Voices nearby. Maggie looked up and immediately wanted to scream. Three burly men in outsized jackets were showing off their badges as they moved through the crowd of groaning passengers. ‘Just checking tickets. Have them ready for inspection,’ the lead one was saying.
Maggie stood up and worked her way through
the muttering throng towards the tram door, keeping her head down. Surely the bikes had gone. Surely there wasn’t another one coming.
‘Hang on there, miss,’ the man said, approaching her. ‘Just gotta check your ticket.’ Up close, his face was broad and flabby, barely managing to contain his smug glee at catching someone. His cronies, smelling blood, were moving over to join him as other passengers shifted out of the way.
‘Where’s your ticket?’ the inspector asked her.
‘Don’t have one.’
‘That’s an offence.’ He said the last word as if it gave him almost sexual pleasure. ‘You are aware it’s illegal to travel without a valid ticket?’
The tram was slowing.
Maggie shrugged.
‘Well, there’s a pretty decent fine for this, which should teach you a lesson.’ The inspector reached for his notebook as the tram stopped and the door slid open. Maggie went for it. The inspector, instinctively, reached for her. She threw the jacket in his face. The inspector stumbled back, colliding with one of his cronies as the third lunged for her, but Maggie stepped backwards off the tram as its door slid shut and it started to move again.
She spun on the spot, looking for bikes, but there was none. Adrenaline still pulsed through her. Maggie’s eyes landed on a nearby bar, lights dim and music slow. Hands in pockets, she moved fast towards it. It was one of those places that was clearly supposed to seem old-fashioned and rustic, all wooden furniture and fairy lights and expensive craft beers. The tables, predictably, were packed with drinkers. Looking as casual as she could, Maggie walked through them all, as if searching for a friend. She caught sight of a young couple in a booth, whispering to each other. Beside the guy was the bundled-up shape of what looked like a hoodie. Maggie slowed as she neared them. Another guy was passing, carrying two pints. Maggie stuck out a foot. With a squawk, he went flying, all eyes on him as Maggie snatched the hoodie and kept walking.
At the rear of the bar was a hall, down which, to Maggie’s relief, a Staff Only sign adorned the door next to the toilet. She slipped through it into a narrower, musty hall lined with shelves straining under boxes, along which she moved until she found a screen door. She slipped through into an alley. She stopped, giving herself a moment to catch her breath.
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